11 Replies - 5207 Views - Last Post: 30 October 2011 - 01:14 PM

[Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 29 October 2011 - 08:13 AM

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I ran across this article today, and it's a great read for people in school, just coming out of school, and even people already in the industry. It has some harsh truths about the "real world", and some great advice about our kind of jobs and careers.

Replies To: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 29 October 2011 - 08:23 AM

Well that took me a while to read, but great share Curtis!

I especially agree with how it is important to say how you contributed to a company in terms of better efficiency or better revenue. It's kind of what employees want from an employee, instead of the rubbish that people (me included) used to put on their resume's.

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 29 October 2011 - 09:41 AM

that was a great find and a really good read. This pretty much highlights it:

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Producing beautiful software is not a goal. Solving complex technical problems is not a goal. Writing bug-free code is not a goal. Using sexy programming languages is not a goal. Add revenue. Reduce costs. Those are your only goals.

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 29 October 2011 - 10:02 AM

The artical seems very enlightening in many ways, but it does seem quite elitest with all the talk of the "real world". It all seems based on the idea that academia is effectively overrated, which I don't subscribe to. Perhaps I'm naive? Probably...

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 29 October 2011 - 06:32 PM

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It all seems based on the idea that academia is effectively overrated,

I'm a theory person. I LOVE math and computational theory. Graph theory is my thing, specifically. In all honesty, I have been in one IT related class that has taught me anything substantial. That was my freshman year of high school. In the IT world, academia is great for preparing you for more academia. It is terrible for preparing you to function in the real world. CS/IT/CIS graduates coming out of colleges nowadays are not prepared to function as entry-level developers in an alarming number of cases. I'm sure I could make more points. There are a lot of threads discussing this if you want to search for some old threads where the points have already been made.

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 30 October 2011 - 03:59 AM

Aphex19, on 29 October 2011 - 01:02 PM, said:

with all the talk of the "real world".

The "real world" is what pays the bills. Your job is to write a program that does X. Ideally, involving the least time and money possible. The client that wants that program don't care about anything beyond that. If it took longer to get it done, or cost more to produce, because you were doing it "right", then you are failing at the perceived goals of the rest of the world.

Now, if you do it right, that's an investment in future maintenance that will pay off over time. The problem is that businesses are inherently myopic. They are concerned with the costs on a spreadsheet, right now. If future savings is non quantifiable, it's irrelevant to the bean counters.

It's not elitist, it's the the fundamental difference between the concerns of the those doing a job and those paying to have it done. If the client knew enough to do it themselves, they wouldn't be the client.

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 30 October 2011 - 06:15 AM

Before getting too cynical about businesses, do remember a sustainable business wants that client to keep coming back with new orders.
A non-expert client may be expecting something he was not able to specify in a contract. That he gets what he specified can be a huge disappointment in turn to his clients and the software company (ie the coder) gets the blame, not the client. A professional has clear ethics that show concern to both employer and client.
Discuss long and then code quickly.

Re: [Article] Don't call yourself a Programmer, and other career advic

Posted 30 October 2011 - 09:18 AM

Yeah, I saw this on slashdot. It was really funny and kind of sad. Mainly because it is so damned truthful and I would argue this for anything in the IT field. If you're looking for big name titles, well be careful. There is always some dimwitted MBA going through payrolls (whether your attached to cost/profit center or are producing value sometimes doesn't matter). As mentioned in the article, companies are often fine with exchanging quality for cost.